{"id":18572,"date":"2020-05-22T14:57:08","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T21:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/?p=18572"},"modified":"2020-05-22T14:27:52","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T21:27:52","slug":"church-refuses-to-close-during-lockdown-angering-locals-now-it-has-been-burned-to-the-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/church-refuses-to-close-during-lockdown-angering-locals-now-it-has-been-burned-to-the-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"Church refuses to close during lockdown, angering locals. Now it has been burned to the ground."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sarah Taylor<\/a> – May 21, 2020<\/p>\n

A Mississippi church whose leadership refused to close the church’s doors during the state’s COVID-19 lockdown is now no more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An as-yet identified suspect reportedly burned the church down Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

The First Pentecostal Church of Holly Springs was vandalized, which caused an explosion to the rear of the facility.<\/p>\n

Authorities are investigating the vandalism as a criminal act of arson.<\/p>\n

One message spray painted on the church property read, “I bet you stay home now you hypokrits [sic].”<\/p>\n

Stephen Crampton, an attorney for the church, told WHBQ-TV<\/a> on Thursday that the unknown vandal or vandals spray-painted the church and set it on fire.<\/p>\n

“There was a major explosion in the back of the church that blew out the front,” Crampton said.<\/p>\n

Crampton also said that he believed the church was targeted for “being outspoken and somewhat firm about seeking to protect their constitutional rights” by refusing to close during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.theblaze.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Taylor – May 21, 2020 A Mississippi church whose leadership refused to close the church’s doors during the state’s COVID-19 lockdown is now no more. An as-yet identified suspect reportedly burned the church down Wednesday morning. The First Pentecostal Church of Holly Springs was vandalized, which caused an explosion to the rear of the … Continue reading Church refuses to close during lockdown, angering locals. Now it has been burned to the ground.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[175,177,125,14826,14957,14956,3680,241,14958],"class_list":["post-18572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-white-horse","tag-christianity","tag-christians","tag-church","tag-covid-19","tag-holly-springs","tag-mississippi-church","tag-pandemic","tag-persecution","tag-stephen-crampton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18572"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18575,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18572\/revisions\/18575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}